Wildfire burns 22 square miles in Southern California

The Silver Fire has forced the closure of a portion of Highway 243 between Banning and Azalea Trail in Poppet Flats, according to the website of the Riverside County Fire Department/Cal Fire on Aug. 7, 2013.
The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

Five people injured as blaze whips through San Jacinto Mountains.

A pickup truck is engulfed in flames as a wildfire roars through a residential area near Hwy 243 and Twin Pines Road between Banning and Idyllwild, Calif., on Aug. 7.(Photo: Frank Bellino, The Press-Enterprise, via AP)

A fast-moving wildfire roared through Southern California's San Jacinto Mountains on Thursday, burning homes, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,800 residents and injuring five people.

The fire 20 miles west of Palm Springs had burned an estimated 14,000 acres — nearly 22 square miles — by Thursday evening, the Riverside County Fire Department said.

The fire is 20% contained, county and state fire officials said, and gusty winds threatened to keep the fire growing in size.

Smoke from the fire could be seen in Palm Springs and other desert resort communities. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said she awoke Thursday at her home in Rancho Mirage, about 35 miles east of the fire, to find the air thick with smoke.

"The smell of smoke was so thick we thought we had a fire in our community,'' she said after receiving a tour with fire officials of the large and growing burn area. "The fires are impacting a broad swath of people, particularly people with respiratory issues.''

Fanned by strong desert gusts, the fire grew and kept firefighters busy through Wednesday night into Thursday trying to establish containment lines. They lit backfires to clear out unburned fuel that remained a threat.

Five people have been reported injured by the wildfire, which fire officials have named the Silver Fire. One civilian was seriously burned and airlifted to a hospital, U.S. Forest Service spokesman John Miller said. Four firefighters were also injured, but details were unavailable, he said.

About 1,860 people and as many as 600 homes were evacuated. Evacuation orders covered the Silent Valley Club, a private RV resort, the rural communities of Poppet Flats, Twin Pines, Edna Valley and Vista Grande, and portions of Cabazon, a city along Interstate 10 at the base of the mountain range.

Evacuation centers were established at high schools in the towns of Hemet and Banning.

Jasmine Hunt said she and her 2-year-old daughter were given 20 minutes to leave their home late Wednesday. She said she could see the flames from her front door.

"The whole sky was just orange," Hunt said. "The flames looked like you could touch them."

More than 1,000 firefighters were involved in the battle, along with six air tankers and at least 13 helicopters, according to Cal Fire, the state's department of forestry and fire prevention.

Cal Fire Riverside Chief John Hawkins said at least 10 homes had been destroyed.

One was the Twin Pines home of Dave Clark, whose parents were killed in a house fire in the city of Riverside in April 2012, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Prosecutors say Clark's sister, Deborah Clark, set that fire, and she is awaiting a mental-competency hearing to see if she is competent to stand trial in her parents' deaths.

"He said he lost everything; he couldn't talk," brother Jeff Clark told the Press-Enterprise.

State Highway 243, which connects the city of Banning on the desert floor with nearby mountain communities, was closed. The fire was in dry, hilly terrain about 85 miles east of Los Angeles.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation, Riverside County Fire Department spokeswoman Melody Hendrickson said.